The giant barb, Siamese giant carp, or simply Siamese carp (''Catlocarpio siamensis'') ( km, ត្រីគល់រាំង, ; th, กระโห้, , , or , , ;

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

: ''cá Hô''), is the largest species of

cyprinid Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest ...

in the world. These migratory fish are found only in the

Mae Klong The Mae Klong (, , ), sometimes spelled Mae Khlong or Meklong, is a river in western Thailand. The river begins at the confluence of the Khwae Noi (Khwae Sai Yok) and the Khwae Yai River (Khwae Si Sawat) in Kanchanaburi, it passes Ratchaburi ...

Mekong The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...

, and

Chao Phraya The Chao Phraya ( or ; th, แม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา, , or ) is the major river in Thailand, with its low alluvial plain forming the centre of the country. It flows through Bangkok and then into the Gulf of Thailand. E ...

River basins in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

. Populations have declined drastically due to

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

and

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in t ...

, and the giant barb is now considered critically endangered.

Distribution and habitat

Giant barbs are usually seen in large pools along the edges of large rivers, but seasonally enter smaller

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface f ...

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

s, and flooded forests. Young barbs are usually found in smaller

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drain ...

and

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s, but can acclimate to living in

pond A pond is an area filled with water, either natural or artificial, that is smaller than a lake. Defining them to be less than in area, less than deep, and with less than 30% emergent vegetation helps in distinguishing their ecology from tha ...

s, and

s. The fish generally live in pairs. These are migratory fish, swimming to favorable areas for feeding and breeding in different parts of the year. These slow-moving fish subsist on

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular micr ...

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. ...

, and

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

s of inundated

terrestrial plant A terrestrial plant is a plant that grows on, in, or from land. Other types of plants are aquatic (living in water), epiphytic (living on trees) and lithophytic (living in or on rocks). The distinction between aquatic and terrestrial plants i ...

s, rarely (if ever) feeding on active

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...

s. In the lower Mekong basin, young giant barbs have been reported as occurring primarily in October.

Physical characteristics

The head is rather large for the body, with no

barbel Barbel may refer to: *Barbel (anatomy), a whisker-like organ near the mouth found in some fish (notably catfish, loaches and cyprinids) and turtles *Barbel (fish), a common name for certain species of fish **''Barbus barbus'', a species of cyprinid ...

s. The giant barb ranks among the largest freshwater fish in the world, and is probably the largest fish in the family

Cyprinidae Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest ve ...

.Nelson, Joseph S. (2006). ''

Fishes of the World ''Fishes of the World'' by the American ichthyologist Joseph S. Nelson (1937–2011) is a standard reference for fish systematics. Now in its fifth edition (2016), the work is a comprehensive overview of the diversity and classification of the ...

''. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. It may reach (although this claimed maximum length needs confirmation) and weigh up to . Among the cyprinids, only the

golden mahseer ''Tor putitora'', the Putitor mahseer, Himalayan mahseer, or golden mahseer, is an endangered species of cyprinid fish that is found in rapid streams, riverine pools, and lakes in the Himalayan region. Its native range is within the basins of th ...

can reach a comparable length, but it is a relatively slender fish that weighs far less. Few large giant barbs are caught today. For example, no individual weighing more than has been caught in

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...

since 1994. Today, the maximum length is about . The current record weight is 105 kg for an individual caught in Thailand in 2019 breaking the previous record by 5 kg. This fish is a

tetraploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contains ...

, meaning it has four of each chromosome (as opposed to

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectiv ...

, the normal number in animals).

Conservation status

Today, few barbs live to maturity. The main threats are from habitat loss (e.g.,

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...

and dams) and overfishing. The sharp population decline is well illustrated by catch data from Cambodia, where 200 tonnes of giant barbs were caught in 1964. By 1980, only about 50 fish were caught, and by 2000, only 10. It was formerly an important fish in local catches below the

Khone Phapheng Falls The Khone Falls and Pha Pheng Falls ( lo, ນ້ຳຕົກຕາດຄອນພະເພັງ; km, ល្បាក់ខោន, ''Lbak Khaon'') together form a waterfall located in Champasak Province on the Mekong River in southern Laos, nea ...

, but surveys between 1993 and 1999 only located a single small individual. Consequently, the giant barb is listed as Critically Endangered on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biolo ...

. It has been entirely

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

from the Chao Phraya River. In a 2005 royal decree, the

Kingdom of Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

designated this fauna as the national fish to bring conservation awareness to this species. In 2005, the giant barb was successfully domesticated and reproduced for the first time at the Vietnam National Breeding Center for Southern Freshwater Aquaculture. In 2012, it was successfully reproduced in the Breeding Center of An Giang Province of Vietnam. In 2010, the Vietnam National Breeding Center released 50,000 young giant barbs into the Tien River in Dong Thap province Vietnam, but a survey showed that only a few of them survived long enough to reach a weight of over one kilogram. At Mae Klong River in the area of Samut Songkhram Province,

central Thailand Central Thailand (Central plain) or more specifically Siam (also known as Suvarnabhumi and Dvaravati) is one of the regions of Thailand, covering the broad alluvial plain of the Chao Phraya River. It is separated from northeast Thailand (Isan) ...

. There are a lot of big giant barbs living there, and during

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () a ...

every year, they will float up to eat Khanom chin noodles fed to them by people.

Cultivation

In recent years, raising giant barb has become common in Vietnam due to its high economic value. Two breeding centers in southern Vietnam offer about 1 million breeder giant barbs to farmers per year. When kept in floating cages in rivers, the fish grow fast and gain 7 kg to 9 kg per year. In ponds where the main diet is natural algae, the fish gain 2 to 5 kg per year. Usually, giant barbs are harvested after three years of cultivation when they weigh 6 to 10 kg, but some farmers keep raising their fish in ponds for more than seven years for them to reach 50 kg before harvesting.

References

External links

Photo in National Geographic of a large specimen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giant Barb Cyprinid fish of Asia Fish of Cambodia Fish of Thailand National symbols of Cambodia Fish described in 1898